Using rsync with the iriver T60

[Matt McCutchen]

On 9/22/07, David Fletcher <mailinglists at thefletchers.net> wrote:
> It plays Ogg files from my PC perfectly well, but only in the same order in
> which it thinks they were copied onto its flash memory. It makes no attempt
> to sort the file names into alphabetical order to play them.

I imagine the player is playing the files in the order their entries
appear in the directory.  Use "ls -U" to see this order.  The order
that results from a particular sequence of operations depends on the
filesystem implementation.

> However if I laboriously create the directories on the player myself, then
> manually drag the files onto it, one at a time, in the correct order, they
> play in the correct order. This, of course, is a PITA.

Or you could write and use a shell script that copies the files one by
one in the correct order.  Even `cp /MiscUsersFiles/Music/Dave/T60/*
/media/disk/Music/' might do the trick because the shell expands the
wildcard into a list of filenames in alphabetical order.

> I was hoping that the -W parameter might cause it to do the job, but no.
> The --delay-updates seems to be the proper magical incantation.

That's interesting.  Rsync processes files in alphabetical order
regardless of the --delay-updates setting.  However, with
--delay-updates, the files' temporary entries are in a subdirectory
rather than the main destination directory, which may avoid disturbing
the order of entries in the destination directory.  Specifying a
--temp-dir or using --inplace may have the same effect as
--delay-updates.

> After an initial write of my music files to the freshly reformatted T60, every
> single album is now listed on the player in the correct order. So now the
> question is, does my use of the --delay-updates option increase the number of
> write cycles to the flash memory, or is it all sorted out in a buffer on the
> PC before everything gets transferred over the USB cable?

I'm guessing it is sorted out in a buffer on the PC.  At least that's
how writes to my Sony Clié's Memory Stick work: the light on the card
doesn't blink until I either "sync" or attempt to unmount the card.
In any event, based on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#Limitations , I wouldn't
worry about the write cycles.

Matt